How to Deal With Boy & Girl Cats That Hate Each Other

Hissing, spitting and swatting are not easy for a cat guardian to watch. When two cats--or more--live together, there will be occasional disagreements. When disagreements escalate to fighting, and fighting becomes nearly constant, everyone in the home--cats and people, and even dogs--is miserable. But you can take some steps to help two cats learn at least to tolerate each other. While gender has little role in predicting whether two cats will be friends, it's much more difficult to call a cease-fire among feuding felines that have not be sterilized.

Things You'll Need

  • Cat toys
  • Scratching posts
  • Cardboard boxes
  • Cat trees
  • Litter boxes
  • Feliway diffuser
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Instructions

    • 1

      Have the cats spayed and neutered. The hormone fluctuations in unaltered cats create more stress in the home and lead to more fighting.

    • 2

      Provide cats with toys, scratching posts, windows and other distractions. If they have more to do, they'll be less likely to pick on each other.

    • 3

      Create places for the cats to hide from each other. Cardboard boxes work great as hiding places.

    • 4

      Don't confine the cats to one area of the house. The more room they have to get away from each other, the less likely they are to fight.

    • 5

      Provide cat trees and other areas where the cats get away from each other and be at different levels. An empty bookshelf a few feet off the ground is great for this purpose.

    • 6

      Add litter boxes. The general rule is one box per cat in the home, plus an extra box. For example, if you have three cats, you should have four boxes. Cats often guard their litter box and may prevent another cat from accessing it when it is needed. This can lead to one cat holding a grudge against another, aggression, stress and messes in your house.

    • 7

      Feed the cats in separate locations so there is no fighting over food.

    • 8

      Provide time for each cat to receive some special attention from you each day.

    • 9

      Don't punish the cats for being aggressive toward one another. This only adds to the stress and creates more aggression between the feuding felines.

    • 10

      Add a Feliway diffuser to each level of your home. Feliway is a synthetic pheromone that is the same as the pheromone a cat produces when she rubs against furniture, people or other animals. This is a signal that all is well and the animal is happy. Feliway has been shown to reduce stress and aggression in multicat households.